Chapter XXXIX: Leges and Epinomis (8)

It appears that women were not admitted as witnesses before the Athenian Dikasteries. Meier und Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, pp. 667-668. The testimony of slaves was received after they had been tortured; which was considered as a guarantee for truth, required in regard to them, but not required in regard to a free-man. The torture is not mentioned in this Platonic treatise. Plato treats a male as _young_ up to the age of thirty (compare Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 35), a female as _young_ up to the age of forty (pp. 932 B-C, 961 B).]

[Side-note: Censure of forensic eloquence, and the teachers of it. Penalties against contentious litigation.]

Among Plato's prohibitions, we are not surprised to find one directed emphatically against forensic eloquence, and against those who professed to teach it. Every thing beneficial to man (says he) has its accompanying poison and corruption. Justice is a noble thing, the great civilising agent in human affairs: to aid any one in obtaining justice, is of course a noble thing also. But these benefits are grossly abused by men, who pretend to possess an art, whereby every one may be sure of judicial victory, either as principal or as auxiliary, whether his cause be just or unjust:--and who offer to teach this art to all who pay a stipulated price. Whether this be (as they pretend) a real art, or a mere inartificial knack--it would be a disgrace to our city, and must be severely punished. Whoever gives show of trying to pervert the force of justice in the minds of the Dikasts, or indulges in unseasonable and frequent litigation, or even lends his aid to other litigants--may be indicted by any citizen as guilty of abuse of justice, either as principal or auxiliary. He shall be tried before the Court of Select Judges: who, if they find him guilty, will decide whether he has committed the offence from love of money, or from love of contention and ambitious objects. If from love of contention, he shall be interdicted, for such time as the Court may determine, from instituting any suit at law on his own account as well as from aiding in any suit instituted by others.[446] If from love of money, the citizen found guilty shall be capitally punished, the non-citizen shall be banished in perpetuity. Moreover the citizen convicted of committing this offence even from love of contention, if it be a second conviction for the offence, shall be put to death also.[447]

[Footnote 446: Plato, Legg. xi. p. 938 B. [Greek: tima=|n au)tô=| to\ dikastê/riou o(/sou chrê\ chro/nou to\n toiou=ton mêdeni\ lachei=n di/kên mêde\ xundikê=sai.] I cannot understand why Stallbaum, in his very useful notes on the Leges, observes upon this passage (p. 330):--"[Greek: lagcha/nein di/kên] de caussidicis accipiendum, qui caussam aliquam pro aliis in foro agendam ac defendendam suscipiunt". This is the explanation belonging to [Greek: xundikê=sai]: [Greek: lachei=n di/kên] is the well known phrase for a plaintiff or a prosecutor as principal.]

[Footnote 447: Plato, Legg. xi. pp. 937 E, 938 C.]

[Side-note: Many of Plato's laws are discharges of ethical antipathy. The antipathy of Melêtus against Sokrates was of the same character.]

The vague and undefined character of this offence, for which Plato denounces capital punishment, shows how much his penal laws are discharges of ethical antipathy and hostility against types of character conceived by himself--rather than measures intended for application, in which he had weighed beforehand the practical difficulties of singling out and striking the right individual. On this matter the Athenian public had the same ethical antipathy as himself; and Melêtus took full advantage of it, when he brought his accusation against Sokrates. We know both from the Apologies of Plato and Xenophon, and from the Nubes of Aristophanes--that Sokrates was rendered odious to the Athenian people and Dikasts, partly as heterodox and irreligious, but partly also as one who taught the art of using speech so as to make the worse appear the better reason. Both Aristophanes and Melêtus would have sympathised warmly with the Platonic law. If there had been any Solonian law to the same effect, which Melêtus could have quoted in his accusatory speech, his case against Sokrates would have been materially strengthened. Especially, he would have had the express sanction of law for his proposition of death as the penalty: a proposition to which the Athenian Dikasts would not have consented, had they not been affronted and driven to it by the singular demeanour of Sokrates himself when before them. It would be irrelevant here to say that Sokrates was not guilty of what was imputed to him: that he never came before the Dikastery until the time of his trial--and that he did not teach "the art of words". If he did not teach it, he was at least believed to teach it, not merely by Aristophanes and by the Athenian Dikasts, but also by intelligent men like Kritias and Charikles,[448] who knew him perfectly well: while the example of Antiphon shows that a man might be most acute and efficacious as a forensic adviser, without coming in person before the Dikastery.[449] What the defence really makes us feel is, the indefinite nature of the charge: which is neither provable nor disprovable, and which is characterised, both by Xenophon and in the Platonic Apology, as one of the standing calumnies against all philosophising men.[450] Here, in the Platonic Leges, this same unprovable offence is adopted and made capital: the Select Platonic Dikasts being directed to ascertain, not only whether a man has really committed it, but whether he has been impelled to commit it by love of money, or by love of victory and personal consequence.

[Footnote 448: Xenophon, Memor. i. 2, 31 seq.]

[Footnote 449: Thucydid. viii. 68.]

[Footnote 450: Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 23.

Such was the colloquial power of Sokrates, in the portrait drawn by Xenophon (Mem. i. 2, 14), "that he handled all who conversed with him just as he pleased--[Greek: toi=s de\ dialegome/nois au)tô=| pa=si chrô/menon e)n toi=s lo/gois o(/pôs bou/loito.] Kritias and Alkibiades (Xenophon tells us) sought his society for the purpose of strengthening their own oratorical powers as political men, and of becoming [Greek: krei/ttone tô=n suggignome/nôn] (i. 2, 16). Looked at from the point of view of opponents, this would be described as the proceeding of one who himself both could pervert justice--and who taught others to pervert it also. This was the picture of Sokrates which the accusers presented to the Athenian Dikastery: as we may see by the language of Sokrates himself at the beginning of the Platonic Apology.]

[Side-note: Penalty for abuse of public trust--wrongful appropriation of public money--evasion of military service.]

The twelfth and last Book of the Treatise De Legibus deals with various cases of obligation, not towards individuals, but towards the public or the city. Abuse of trust in the character of a public envoy is declared punishable. This offence (familiar to us at Athens through the two harangues of Demosthenes and Æschines) is invested by Plato with a religious colouring, as desecrating the missions and commands of Hermês and Zeus.[451] Wrongful appropriation of the public money by a citizen is also made capital. The penalty is to be inflicted equally whether the sum appropriated be large or small: in either case the guilt is equal, and the evidence of wicked disposition the same, for one who has gone through the public education and training.[452] This is quite different from Plato's principle of dealing with theft or wrongful abstraction of property from private persons: in which case, the sentence of Plato was, that the amount of damage done, small or great, should be made good by the offender, and that a certain ulterior penalty should be inflicted sufficient to deter him as well as others from a repetition.

[Footnote 451: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 941 A.]

[Footnote 452: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 941: compare xi. p. 934 A.]

Provision is farther made for punishing any omission of military service either by males or females, or any discreditable abandonment of arms.[453] The orders of the military commander must be implicitly and exactly obeyed. The actions of all must be orderly, uniform, and simultaneous. Nothing can be more mischievous than that each should act for himself, separately and apart from others. This is confessedly true as to war; but it is no less essential as to the proceedings in peace.[454] Suppression of individuality, and conversion of life into a perpetual, all-pervading, drill and discipline--is a favourite aspiration always present to Plato.

[Footnote 453: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 944. It is curious to compare this passage of Plato with the two orations of Lysias [Greek: kata\ Theomnê/stou] A and B (Oratt. x.-xi.). Plato enjoins upon all accusers the greatest caution and precision in the terms used to indicate what they intended to charge upon the accused. To call a man [Greek: r(i/psaspis] is a more aggravated offensive designation than to call him [Greek: a)poboleu\s o(/plôn], which latter term is more general, and may possibly be applied to those who have lost their arms under the pressure of irresistible necessity, without any disgrace. On the other hand, we read in Lysias, that the offence which was punishable under the Attic law was [Greek: o(/plôn a)pobolê/], and that to assert falsely respecting any citizen, [Greek: ta\ o(/pla a)pobe/blêke], was an [Greek: a)po/r)r(êton] or forbidden phrase, which exposed the speaker to a fine of 500 drachmæ (sect. 1-12). But to assert respecting any man that he was [Greek: r(i/psaspis] was not expressly [Greek: a)po/r)r(êton] (compare Lysias cont. Agorat., Or. xiii. ss. 87-89), and the speaker might argue (successfully or not) that he had said nothing [Greek: a)po/r)r(êton], and was not guilty of legal [Greek: kakêgori/a].--There is another phrase in this section of Plato to which I would call attention. He enumerates the excusable cases of losing arms as follows--[Greek: o(po/soi kata\ krêmnô=n r(iphe/ntes a)pô/lesan o(/pla ê)\ kata\ tha/lattan] (p. 944 A). Now the cases of soldiers being thrown down cliffs are, I believe, unknown until the Phokian prisoners were so dealt with in the Sacred War, as sacrilegious offenders against Apollo and the Delphian temple. Hence we may probably infer that this was composed after the Sacred War began, B.C. 356. See Diodorus and my 'Hist. of Greece,' chap. 87, p. 350 seq.]

[Footnote 454: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 942 B-945. [Greek: e(ni/ te lo/gô| to\ chôri/s ti tô=n a)/llôn pra/ttein dida/xai tê\n psuchê\n e)/thesi mê/te gignô/skein mê/t' e)pi/stasthai to\ para/pan, a)ll' a)thro/on a)ei\ kai\ a(/ma kai\ koino\n to\n bi/on o(/, ti ma/lista pa=si pa/ntôn gi/gnesthai.]]

A Board of Elders is constituted by Plato, as auditors of the proceedings of all Magistrates after their term of office.[455] The mode of choosing these Elders, as well as their duties, liabilities, privileges, and honours, both during life and after death, are prescribed with the utmost solemnity.

[Footnote 455: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 946-948.]

[Side-note: Oaths. Dikasts, Judges, Electors, are to be sworn: but no parties to a suit, or interested witnesses, can be sworn.]

Plato forbids the parties in any judicial suit from swearing: they will present their case to the court, but not upon oath. No judicial oath is allowed to be taken by any one who has a pecuniary interest in the matter on hand. The Dikasts--the judges in all public competitions--the Electors before they elect to a public trust--are all to be sworn: but neither the parties to any cause, nor (seemingly) the witnesses. If oaths were taken on both sides, one or other of the parties must be perjured: and Plato considers it dreadful, that they should go on living with each other afterwards in the same city. In aforetime Rhadamanthus (he tells us) used to settle all disputes simply, by administering an oath to the parties: for in his time no one would take a false oath: men were then not only pious, but even sons or descendants of the Gods. But now (in the Platonic days) impiety has gained ground, and men's oaths are no longer to be trusted, where anything is to be gained by perjury.[456]

[Footnote 456: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 948-949.]

[Side-note: Regulations about admission of strangers, and foreign travel of citizens.]

Strict regulations are provided, as to exit from the Platonic city, and ingress into it. Plato fears contamination to his citizens from converse with the outer world. He would introduce the peremptory Spartan Xenelasy, if he were not afraid of the obloquy attending it. He strictly defines the conditions on which the foreigner will be allowed to come in, or the citizen to go out. No citizen is allowed to go out before he is forty years of age.[457] Envoys must be sent on public missions; and sacred legations (theôries) must be despatched to the four great Hellenic festivals--Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian. But private citizens are not permitted to visit even these great festivals at their own pleasure. The envoys sent must be chosen and trustworthy men: moreover, on returning, they will assure their youthful fellow-citizens, that the home institutions are better than anything that can be seen abroad.[458]

[Footnote 457: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 950.]

[Footnote 458: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 951.]

Special travellers, between the ages of fifty and sixty, will also be permitted to go abroad, and will bring back reports to the Magistrates of what they have observed. Strangers are admitted into the city or its neighbourhood, under strict supervision; partly as observers, partly as traders, for the limited amount of traffic which the lawgiver tolerates.[459] Thus scanty is the worship which Plato will allow his Magnêtes to pay to Zeus Xenius.[460] He seems however to take credit for it as liberal dealing.

[Footnote 459: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 952-953.]

[Footnote 460: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 953 D-E. [Greek: Tou/tois dê\ toi=s no/mois u(pode/chesthai/ te chrê\ pa/ntas xe/nous te kai\ xe/nas kai\ tou\s au(tô=n e)kpe/mpein, timô=ntas xe/nion Di/a, mê\ brô/masi kai\ thu/masi ta\s xenêlasi/as poioume/nous, katha/per poiou=si nu=n thre/mmata Nei/lou, mêde\ kêru/gmasin a)gri/ois.] Stallbaum says in his note (p. 384):--"[Greek: mê\ brô/masi kai\ thu/masi]--peregrinos non expellentes coenis et sacrificiis, h. e. eorum usu iis interdicentes". This surely is not the right explanation. Plato means to say that the Egyptian habits as to eating and sacrifice were intolerably repulsive to a foreigner. We may see this from [Greek: kêru/gmasi], which follows. The peculiarities of Egypt, which Herodotus merely remarks upon with astonishment, may well have given offence to the fastidious and dictatorial spirit of Plato.]

[Side-note: Suretyship--Length of prescription for ownership, &c.]

Plato proceeds with various enactments respecting suretyship--time of prescription for ownership--keeping men away by force either from giving testimony in court or from contending at the public matches--receiving of stolen goods--private war or alliance on the part of any individual citizen, without the consent of the city--receipt of bribes by functionaries--return and registration of each citizen's property--dedications and offerings to the Gods.[461] No systematic order or classification can be traced in the successive subjects.

[Footnote 461: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 954-956.]

[Side-note: Judicial trial--three stages. 1. Arbitrators. 2. Tribe-Dikasteries. 3. Select Dikastery.]

In respect to judiciary matters, he repeats (what had before been directed) his constitution of three stages of tribunals. First, Arbitrators, chosen by both parties in the dispute. From their decision, either party may appeal to the Tribe-Dikasteries, composed of all the citizens of the Tribe or Dême: or at least, composed of a jury taken from these. After this, there is a final appeal to the Select Dikastery, chosen among all the Magistrates for the time being.[462] Plato leaves to his successors the regulations of details, respecting the mode of impannelling and the procedure of these Juries.

[Footnote 462: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 956.]

[Side-note: Funerals--proceedings prescribed--expense limited.]

Lastly come the regulations respecting funerals--the cost, ceremonies, religious proceedings, mode of showing sorrow and reverence, &c.[463] These are given in considerable detail, and with much solemnity of religious exhortation.

[Footnote 463: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 957-958.]

[Side-note: Conservative organ to keep up the original scheme of the lawgiver. Nocturnal Council for this purpose--how constituted.]

We have now reached the close. The city has received its full political and civil outfit: as much legal regulation as it is competent for the lawgiver to provide at the beginning. One guarantee alone is wanting. Some security must be provided for the continuance and durability of the enactments.[464] We must have a special conservative organ, watching over and keeping up the scheme of the original lawgiver. For this function, Plato constitutes a Board, which, from its rule of always beginning its sittings before daybreak, he calls the Nocturnal council. It will comprise ten of the oldest Nomophylakes: all those who have obtained prizes for good conduct or orderly discipline: all those who have been authorised to go abroad, and have been approved on their return. Each of these members will introduce into the Synod one young man of thirty years of age, chosen by himself, but approved by the others.[465] The members will thus be partly old, partly young.

[Footnote 464: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 960 C-D. Compare Plato, Republ. vi. p. 497 D: [Greek: o(/ti de/êsoi/ ti a)ei\ e)nei=nai e)n tê=| po/lei, lo/gon e)/chon tê=s politei/as to\n au)to\n o(/nper kai\ su\ o( nomothe/tês e)/chôn tou\s no/mous e)ti/thês.]]

[Footnote 465: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 961 A-B.]

This Nocturnal council is intended as the conservative organ of the Platonic city. It is, in the city, what the soul and head are in an animal. The soul includes Reason: the head includes the two most perfect senses--Sight and Hearing. The fusion, in one, of Reason with these two senses ensures the preservation of the animal.[466] In the Nocturnal council, the old members represent Reason, the young members represent the two superior senses, serving as instruments and means of communication between Reason and the outer world. The Nocturnal council, embracing the agency of both, maintains thereby the life and continuity of the city.[467]

[Footnote 466: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 961 D.]

[Footnote 467: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 964 D-965 A.]

It is the special duty of this council, to serve as a perpetual embodiment of the original lawgiver, and to comprehend as well as to realise the main purpose for which the city was put together. The councillors must keep constantly in view this grand political end, as the pilot keeps in view safe termination of the voyage--as the military commander keeps in view victory, and the physician, recovery of health. Should the physician or the pilot either not know his end, or not know the conditions under which it may be attained--his labour will be in vain. So, if there does not exist in the city an authority understanding the great political end and the means (either by laws or human agents) of accomplishing it, the city will be a failure. Hence the indispensable necessity of the Nocturnal council, with members properly taught and organised.[468]

[Footnote 468: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 962 B. [Greek: dei= . . . ei)=nai/ ti to\ gignô=skon e)n au)tô=|] (the city) [Greek: prô=ton me\n tou=to o(\ le/gomen, to\n skopo/n, o(/stis pote\ o( politiko\s ô)\n ê(mi=n tugcha/nei, e)/peita o(/ntina tro/pon dei= metaschei=n tou/tou kai\ ti/s au)tô=| kalô=s ê)\ mê\ sumbouleu/ei tô=n no/môn au)tô=n prô=ton, e)/peita a)nthrô/pôn.]

[Side-note: This Council must keep steadily in view the one great end of the city--Mistakes made by existing cities about the right end.]

The great political end must be one, and not many. All the arrows aimed by the central Conservative organ must be aimed at one and the same point.[469] This is the chief excellence of a well-constituted conservative authority. Existing cities err all of them in one of two ways. Either they aim at one single End, but that End bad or wrong: or they aim at a variety of Ends without giving exclusive attention to any one. Survey existing cities: you will find that in one, the great purpose, and the main feature of what passes for justice, is, that some party or faction shall obtain or keep political power, whether its members be better or worse than their fellow-citizens: in a second city, it is wealth--in a third freedom of individuals--in a fourth, freedom combined with power over foreigners. Some cities, again, considering themselves wiser than the rest, strive for all these objects at once or for a variety of others, without exclusive attention to any one.[470] Amidst such divergence and error in regard to the main end, we cannot wonder that all cities fail in attaining it.

[Footnote 469: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 962 D. [Greek: dei= dê\ tou=ton] (the nocturnal synod) . . . [Greek: pa=san a)retê\n e)/chein, ê(=s a)/rchei to\ mê\ plana=sthai pro\s polla\ stochazo/menon, a)ll' ei)s e(\n ble/ponta pro\s tou=to a)ei\ ta\ pa/nta oi(=on be/lê a)phie/nai.]]

[Footnote 470: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 962 D-E. Compare Aristot. Eth. Nikom. x. 1180, a. 26.]

[Side-note: The one end of the city is the virtue of its citizens--that property which is common to the four varieties of Virtue--Reason, Courage, Temperance, Justice.]

The One End proposed by _our_ city is, the virtue of its citizens. But virtue is fourfold, or includes four varieties--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice. Our End is and must be One. The medical Reason has its One End, Good Health:[471] the stratêgic Reason has its One End--Victory: What is that One End (analogous to these) which the political Reason aims at? It must be that in which the four cardinal virtues--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice--are One, or coincide: that common property, possessed by all and by each, which makes them to be virtue, and constitutes the essential meaning of the name, Virtue. We must know the four as four, that is, the points of difference between them: but it is yet more important to know them as One--to discern the point of essential coincidence and union between them.[472]

[Footnote 471: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 963 A-B. [Greek: nou=n ga\r dê\ kubernêtiko\n me\n kai\ i)atriko\n kai\ stratêgiko\n ei)/pomen ei)s to\ e(\n e)kei=no oi(= dei= ble/pein, to\n de\ politiko\n e)le/gchontes e)ntau=th' e)sme\n nu=n . . . Ô)= thauma/sie, su\ de\ dê\ poi= skopei=s? Ti/ pot' e)kei=no/ e)sti to\ e(\n, o(\ dê\ saphô=s o( me\n i)atriko\s nou=s e)/chei phra/zein, su\ d' ô)\n dê\ diaphe/rôn, ô(s phai/ês a)/n, pa/ntôn tô=n e)mphro/nôn, ou)ch e(/xeis ei)pei=n?]]

[Footnote 472: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 963 E-964 A.]

[Side-note: The Nocturnal Council must comprehend this unity of Virtue, explain it to others, and watch that it be carried out in detail.]

To understand thoroughly this unity of virtue, so as to act upon it themselves, to explain it to others and to embody it in all their orders--is the grand requisite for the supreme Guardians of our city--the Nocturnal council. We cannot trust such a function in the hands of poets, or of visiting discoursers who announce themselves as competent to instruct youth. It cannot be confided to any less authority than the chosen men--the head and senses--of our city, properly and specially trained to exercise it.[473] Upon this depends the entire success or failure of our results. Our guardians must be taught to see that one Idea which pervades the Multiple and the Diverse:[474] to keep it steadily before their own eyes, and to explain and illustrate it in discourse to others. They must contemplate the point of coincidence and unity between Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice: as well as between the many different things called Beautiful, and the many different things called Good.[475] They must declare whether the name Virtue, common to all the four, means something One--or a Whole or Aggregate--or both together.[476] If they cannot explain to us whether Virtue is Manifold or Fourfold, or in what manner it is One--they are unfit for their task, and our city will prove a failure. To know the truth about these important matters--to be competent to explain and defend it to others--to follow it out in practice, and to apply it in discriminating what is well done and what is ill done--these are the imperative and indispensable duties of our Guardians.[477]

[Footnote 473: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 964 D.]

[Footnote 474: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 965 C. [Greek: to\ pro\s mi/an i)de/an e)k tô=n pollô=n kai\ a)nomoi/ôn dunato\n ei)=nai ble/pein.]]

[Footnote 475: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 965 D, 966 A-B.]

[Footnote 476: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 965 D. [Greek: pri\n a)\n i(kanô=s ei)/pômen ti/ pote/ e)stin, ei)s o(\ blepte/on, _ei)/te ô(s e(\n, ei)/te ô(s o(/lon_, ei)/te _a)mpho/tera_, ei)/te o(/pôs pote\ pe/phuken; ê)\ tou/tou diaphugo/ntos ê(ma=s oi)o/metha/ pote ê(mi=n i(kanô=s e(/xein ta\ pro\s a)retê/n, peri\ ê(=s ou)/t' ei) polla/ e)st', ou)/t' ei) te/ttara, ou)/th' ô(s e(/n, dunatoi\ phra/zein e)so/metha?]]

[Footnote 477: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 966 B.]

[Side-note: They must also adopt, explain, and enforce upon the citizens, an orthodox religious creed. Fundamental dogmas of such creed.]

Farthermore it is also essential that they should adopt an orthodox religious creed, and should be competent to explain and defend it. The citizens generally must believe without scrutiny such dogmas as the lawgiver enjoins; but the Guardians must master the proofs of them.[478] The proofs upon which, in Plato's view, all true piety rests, are two[479] (he here repeats them):--1. Mind or soul is older than Body--anterior to Body as a moving power--and invested with power to impel, direct, and controul Body. 2. When we contemplate the celestial rotation, we perceive such extreme exactness and regularity in the movement of the stars (each one of the vast multitude maintaining its relative position in the midst of prodigious velocity of movement) that we cannot explain it except by supposing a Reason or Intelligence pervading and guiding them all. Many astronomers have ascribed this regular movement to an inherent Necessity, and have hereby drawn upon science reproaches from poets and others, as if it were irreligious. But these astronomers (Plato affirms) were quite mistaken in excluding Mind and Reason from the celestial bodies, and in pronouncing the stars to be bodies without mind, like earth or stones. Necessity cannot account for their exact and regular movements: no other supposition is admissible except the constant volition of mind in-dwelling in each, impelling and guiding them towards exact goodness of result. Astronomy well understood is, in Plato's view, the foundation of true piety. It is only the erroneous astronomical doctrines which are open to the current imputations of irreligion.[480]

[Footnote 478: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 966 D.]

[Footnote 479: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 967 E.]

[Footnote 480: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 967 A-D. [Greek: dianoi/ais boulê/seôs a)gathô=n peri\ teloume/nôn . . . mê/pot' a)\n a)/psucha o)/nta ou(/tôs ei)s a)kri/beian thaumastoi=s logismoi=s a)\n e)chrê=to, nou=n mê\ kektême/na . . . to/n te ei)rême/non e)n toi=s a)/strois nou=n tô=n o)/ntôn.]]

These are the capital religious or kosmical dogmas which the members of the Nocturnal Council must embrace and expound to others, together with the mathematical and musical teaching suitable to illustrate them. Application must be made of these dogmas to improve the laws and customs of the city, and the dispositions of the citizens.[481]

[Footnote 481: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 967 E.]

When this Nocturnal Council, with its members properly trained and qualified, shall be established in the akropolis--symbolising the conjunction of Reason with the head or with the two knowledge-giving senses--the Magnêtic City may securely be entrusted to it, with certainty of an admirable result.[482]

[Footnote 482: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 969 B.]

* * * * *

EPINOMIS.

[Side-note: Leges close, without describing the education proper for the Nocturnal Counsellors. _Epinomis_--supplying this defect.]

Here closes the dialogue called Leges: somewhat prematurely, since the peculiar training indispensable for these Nocturnal Counsellors has not yet been declared. The short dialogue called Epinomis supplies this defect. It purports to be a second day's conversation between the same trio.

[Side-note: The Athenian declares his plan of education--Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy.]

The Athenian--adverting to the circumstances of human life generally, as full of toil and suffering, with few and transient moments of happiness--remarks that none except the wise have any chance of happiness; and that few can understand what real wisdom is, though every one presumes that there must be something of the kind discoverable.[483] He first enumerates what _it is not_. It is not any of the useful arts--husbandry, house-building, metallurgy, weaving, pottery, hunting, &c.: nor is it prophecy, or the understanding of omens: nor any of the elegant arts--music, poetry, painting: nor the art of war, or navigation, or medicine, or forensic eloquence: nor does it consist in the natural endowments of quick wit and good memory.[484] True wisdom is something different from all these. It consists in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, leading to a full comprehension of the regular movements of the Kosmos--combined with a correct religious creed as to the divine attributes of the Kosmos and its planetary bodies which are all pervaded and kept in harmonious rotation by divine, in-dwelling, soul or mind.[485] It is the God Uranus (or Olympus, or Kosmos), with the visible Gods included therein, who furnishes to us not only the gifts of the seasons and the growth of food, but also varied intelligence, especially the knowledge of number, without which no other knowledge would be attainable.[486] Number and proportion are essential conditions of every variety of art. The regular succession of night and day, and the regularly changing phases of the moon--the comparison of months with the year--first taught us to count, and to observe the proportions of numbers to each other.[487]

[Footnote 483: Plato, Epinom. pp. 973-974.]

[Footnote 484: Plato, Epinom. pp. 975-976.]

[Footnote 485: Plato, Epinom. pp. 976-977.]

[Footnote 486: Plato, Epinom. pp. 977-978.]

[Footnote 487: Plato, Epinom. pp. 978-979.]

[Side-note: Theological view of Astronomy--Divine Kosmos--Soul more ancient and more sovereign than Body.]

The Athenian now enters upon the directly theological point of view, and re-asserts the three articles of orthodoxy which he had laid down in the tenth book of Leges: together with the other point of faith also--That Soul or Mind is older than body: soul is active and ruling--body, passive and subject. An animal is a compound of both. There are five elementary bodies--fire, air, æther, water, earth[488]--which the kosmical soul moulded, in varying proportions, so as to form different animals and plants. Man, animals, and plants were moulded chiefly of earth, yet with some intermixture of the other elements: the stars were moulded chiefly from fire, having the most beautiful bodies, endowed with divine and happy souls, and immortal, or very long-lived.[489] Next to the stars were moulded the Dæmons, out of æther, and inhabitants of that element: after them, the animals inhabiting air, and Nymphs inhabiting water. These three occupy intermediate place between the stars above and man below.[490] They serve as media of communication between man and the Gods: and also for the diffusion of thought and intelligence among all parts of the Kosmos.[491] The Gods of the ordinary faith--Zeus, Hêrê, and others--must be left to each person's disposition, if he be inclined to worship them: but the great visible Kosmos, and the sidereal Gods, must be solemnly exalted and sanctified, with prayer and the holiest rites.[492] Those astronomers who ignore this divine nature, and profess to explain their movements by physical or mechanical forces, are guilty of grave impiety. The regularity of their movements is a proof of their divine nature, not a proof of the contrary, as some misguided persons affirm.[493]

[Footnote 488: Plato, Epinom. pp. 980-981. We know, from a curious statement of Xenokrates (see Fragm. of his work [Greek: Peri\ tou= Pla/tônos bi/ou], cited by Simplikius, ad Aristot. Physic. p. 427, a. 17, Schol. Brandis), that this quintuple elementary scale was a doctrine of Plato. But it is not the doctrine of the Timæus. The assertion of Xenokrates (good evidence) warrants us in believing that Plato altered his views after the composition of Timæus, and that his latest opinions are represented in the Epinomis. Zeller indeed thinks that the dodekahedron in the Timæus might be construed as a fifth element, but this is scarcely tenable. Zeller, Philos. der Griechen, vol. ii. p. 513, ed. 2nd.]

[Footnote 489: Plat. Epinom. pp. 981-982.]

[Footnote 490: Plat. Epinom. pp. 983-984.]

[Footnote 491: Plat. Epinom. p. 984.]

[Footnote 492: Plat. Epinom. pp. 984 D-985 D.]

[Footnote 493: Plat. Epinom. pp. 982 D, 983 C.]

[Side-note: Improving effects of the study of Astronomy in this spirit.]

Next, the Athenian intimates that the Greeks have obtained their astronomical knowledge, in the first instance, from Egypt and Assyria, but have much improved upon what they learnt (p. 987): that the Greeks at first were acquainted only with the three [Greek: phorai\]--the outer or sidereal sphere ([Greek: A)planê\s]), the Sun, and the Moon--but unacquainted with the other five or planetary [Greek: phorai\], which they first learned from these foreigners, though not the names of the planets (p. 986): that all these eight were alike divine, fraternal agents, partakers in the same rational nature, and making up altogether the divine [Greek: Ko/smos]: that those who did not recognise all the eight as divine, consummately rational, and revolving with perfectly uniform movement, were guilty of impiety (p. 985 E): that these kosmical, divine, rational agents taught to mankind arithmetic and the art of numeration (p. 988 B): that soul, or plastic, demiurgic, cognitive force (p. 981 C), was an older and more powerful agent in the universe than body--but that there were two varieties of soul, a good and bad, of which the good variety was the stronger: the good variety of soul produced all the good movements, the bad variety produced all the bad movements (p. 988 D, E): that in studying astronomy, a man submitted himself to the teaching of this good soul and these divine agents, from whom alone he could learn true wisdom and piety (pp. 989 B-990 A): that this study, however, must be conducted not with a view to know the times of rising and setting of different stars (like Hesiod) but to be able to understand and follow the eight [Greek: periphora/s] (p. 990 B).

[Side-note: Study of arithmetic and geometry: varieties of proportion.]

To understand these--especially the five planetary and difficult [Greek: periphora\s]--arithmetic must also be taught, not in the concrete, but in the abstract (p. 990 C, D), to understand how much the real nature of things is determined by the generative powers and combination of Odd and Even Number. Next, geometry also must be studied, so as to compare numbers with plane and solid figures, and thus to determine proportions between two numbers which are not directly commensurable. The varieties of proportion, which are marvellously combined, must be understood--first arithmetical and geometrical proportions, the arithmetical proportion increasing by equal addition (1 + 1 = 2), or the point into a line--then the geometrical proportion by way of multiplication (2 × 2 = 4; 4 × 2 = 8), or the line raised into a surface, and the surface raised into a cube. Moreover there are two other varieties of proportion ([Greek: to\ ê(mio/lion] or sesquialterum, and [Greek: to\ e)pi/triton] or sesquitertium) both of which occur in the numbers between the ratio of 6 to 12 (_i.e._ 9 is [Greek: to\ ê(mio/lion] of 6, or 9 = 6 + 6/2; again 8 is, [Greek: to\ e)pi/triton] of 6, or 8 = 6 + 6/3). This last is _harmonic proportion_, when there are three terms, of which the third is as much greater than the middle, as the middle is greater than the first (3 : 4 : 6)--six is greater than four by one-third of six, while four is greater than three by one-third of three (p. 991 A).

[Side-note: When the general forms of things have thus been learnt, particular individuals in nature must be brought under them.]

Lastly, having thus come to comprehend the general forms of things, we must bring under them properly the visible individuals in nature; and in this process interrogation and cross-examination must be applied (p. 991 C). We must learn to note the accurate regularity with which time brings all things to maturity, and we shall find reason to believe that all things are full of Gods (p. 991 D). We shall come to perceive that there is one law of proportion pervading every geometrical figure, every numerical series, every harmonic combination, and all the celestial rotations: one and the same bond of union among all (p. 991 E). These sciences, whether difficult or easy, must be learnt: for without them no happy nature will be ever planted in our cities (p. 992 A). The man who learns all this will be the truly wise and happy man, both in this life and after it; only a few men can possibly arrive at such happiness (p. 992 C). But it is these chosen few who, when they become Elders, will compose our Nocturnal Council, and maintain unimpaired the perpetual purity of the Platonic City.

[Side-note: Question as to education of the Nocturnal Council is answered in the Epinomis.]

Such then is the answer given by the Epinomis, to the question left unanswered in the Leges. However unsatisfactory it may appear, to those who look for nothing but what is admirable in Plato--I believe it to represent the latest views of his old age, when dialectic had given place in his mind to the joint ascendancy of theological sentiment and Pythagorean arithmetic.[494]

[Footnote 494: In connection with the treatise called Epinomis, the question arises, What were the modifications which Plato's astronomical doctrines underwent during the latter years of his life? In what respect did they come to differ from what we read in the Platonic Timæus, where a geocentric system is proclaimed: whether we suppose (as Boeckh and others do) that the Earth is represented as stationary at the centre--or (as I suppose) that the Earth is represented as fastened to the centre of the kosmical axis, and revolving with it. The Epinomis delivers a geocentric system also.

Now it is upon this very point that Plato's opinions are said to have changed towards the close of his life. He came to repent that he had assigned to the Earth the central place in the system; and to conceive that place as belonging properly to something else, some other better (or more powerful) body. This is a curious statement, made in two separate passages by Plutarch, and in one of the two passages with reference to Theophrastus as his witness (Plutarch, Vit. Numæ, c. 11; Platonic. Quæst. 8, p. 1006 C).

Boeckh (Untersuchungen über das Kosmische System des Platon, pp. 144-149) and Martin (Études sur le Timée, ii. 91) discredit the statement ascribed by Plutarch to Theophrastus. But I see no sufficient ground for such discredit. Sir George Lewis remarks very truly (Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 143):--"The testimony of Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle, and nearly his contemporary, has great weight on this point. The ground of the opinion alludes to the Pythagorean doctrine mentioned by Aristotle, that the centre is the most dignified place, and that the earth is not the first in dignity among the heavenly bodies. It has no reference to observed phenomena, and is not founded on inductive scientific arguments. . . . The doctrine as to the superior dignity of the central place, and of the impropriety of assigning the most dignified station to the earth, was of Pythagorean origin and was probably combined with the Philolaic cosmology."

This remark of Sir George Lewis deserves attention, not merely from the proper value which he assigns to the testimony of Theophrastus, but because he confines himself to the exact matter which Theophrastus affirmed; _viz._, that Plato in his old age came to repent of his own cosmical views on one particular point and on one special ground. Theophrastus does not tell us what it was that Plato supposed to be in the centre, after he had become convinced that it was too dignified a place for the earth. Plato _may_ have come to adopt the positive opinion of Philolaus (that of a central fire) as well as the negative opinion (that the Earth was not the central body). But we cannot affirm that he _did_ adopt either this positive opinion or any other positive opinion upon that point. I take Theophrastus to have affirmed exactly what Plutarch makes him affirm, and no more: that Plato came to repent of having assigned to the earth the central place which did not befit it, and to account the centre the fit place "for some other body better than the Earth," yet without defining what that other body was. If Theophrastus had named what the other body was, surely Plutarch would never have suppressed the specific designation to make room for the vague [Greek: e(te/rô| tini\ krei/ttoni].

There is thus, in my judgment, ground for believing that Plato in his old age (after the publication of the Treatise De Legibus) came to distrust the geocentric dogma which he had previously supported; but we do not know whether he adopted any other dogma in place of it. The geocentric doctrine passed to the Epinomis as a continuation of the Treatise De Legibus. The phrase which Plutarch cites from Theophrastus deserves notice--[Greek: Theo/phrastos de\ kai\ prosistorei= tô=| Pla/tôni presbute/rô| genome/nô| _metamelei=n_, ô(s ou) prosê/kousan a)podo/nti tê=| gê=| tê\n me/sên chô/ran tou= panto/s.] Plato _repented_. Whoever reads the Treatise De Legibus (especially Books vii. and x.) will see that Plato at that period of his life considered astronomical errors as not merely errors, but heresies offensive to the Gods; and that he denounced those who supported such errors as impious. If Plato came afterwards to alter his astronomical views, he would _repent_ of his own previous views as of a heresy. He came to believe that he had rated the dignity of the Earth too high; and we can see how this change of view may have been occasioned. Earth was looked upon by him, as well as by many others, in two distinct points of view. 1. As a cosmical body, divine, and including [Greek: tou\s chthoni/ous theou/s]. 2. As one of the four elements, along with water, air, and fire; in which sense it was strung together with [Greek: li/thoi], and had degrading ideas associated with it (Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 26 D). These two meanings, not merely distinct but even opposed to each other, occur in the very same sentence of De Legibus, x. p. 886 D. The elemental sense of Earth was brought prominently forward by those reasoners whom Plato refutes in Book x.: and the effect of such reasonings upon him was, that though he still regarded Earth as a Deity, he no longer continued to regard Earth as worthy of the cosmical post of honour. At that age, however, he might well consider himself excused from broaching any new positive theory.]

[Side-note: Problem which the Nocturnal Council are required to solve, What is the common property of Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice, by reason of which each is called Virtue?]

Assuming that the magistrates of the Nocturnal Council have gone through the course of education prescribed in the Epinomis, and have proved themselves unimpeachable on the score of orthodoxy--will they be able to solve the main problem which he has imposed upon them at the close of the Leges? There, as elsewhere, he proclaims a problem as indispensable to be solved, but does not himself furnish any solution. What is the common property, or point of similarity between Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice--by reason of which each is termed Virtue? What are the characteristic points of difference, by reason of which Virtue sometimes receives one of these names, sometimes another?

[Side-note: The only common property is that all of them are essential to the maintenance of society, and tend to promote human security and happiness.]

The proper way of answering this question has been much debated, from Plato's day down to the present. It is one of the fundamental problems of Ethical Philosophy.

The subjective matter of fact, implied by every one who designates an act or a person as virtuous, is an approving or admiring sentiment which each man knows in his own bosom. But Plato assumes that there is, besides this, an objective connotation: a common object or property to which such sentiment refers. What is that common object? I see no other except that which is indicated by the principle of Utility: I mean that principle which points out Happiness and Unhappiness, not merely of the agent himself, but also of others affected or liable to be affected by his behaviour, as the standard to which these denominations refer. Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, all tend to prevention and mitigation of unhappiness, and to increase of happiness, as well for the agent himself as for the society surrounding him. The opposite qualities--Timidity, Imprudence, Intemperance, Injustice--tend with equal certainty either to increase positively the unhappiness of the agent and of society, or to remove the means for warding it off or abating it. Indeed there is a certain minimum of all the four--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice--without which or below which neither society could hold together, nor the life of the individual agent himself could be continued.

[Side-note: Tendency of the four opposite qualities to lessen human happiness.]

Here then is one answer at least to the question of Plato. Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice--all of them mental attributes of rational voluntary agents--have also the common property of being, in a certain minimum degree, absolutely essential to the life of the agent and the maintenance of society--and of being, above that degree, tutelary against the suffering, and beneficial to the happiness, of both. This tutelary or beneficent tendency is the common objective property signified by the general term Virtue; and is implicated with the subjective property before mentioned--the sentiment of approbation. The four opposite qualities are designated by the general term Vice or Defect, connoting both maleficent tendency and the sentiment of disapprobation.

[Side-note: A certain measure of all the four virtues is required. In judging of particular acts instigated by each, there is always a tacit reference to the hurt or benefit in the special case.]

This proposition will be farther confirmed, if we look at all the four qualities--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice--in another point of view. Taking them in their reference to Virtue, each of them belongs to Virtue as a part to the whole,[495] not as one species contradistinguished from and excluding other species. The same person may have, and ought to have, a certain measure of all: he will not be called virtuous unless he has a measure of all. Excellence in any one will not compensate for the entire absence of the others.

[Footnote 495: Compare Plato, Legg. i. p. 629 B, where he describes [Greek: tê\n xu/mpasan a)retê\n--dikaiosu/nê kai\ sôphrosu/nê kai\ phro/nêsis ei)s tau)to\n e)lthou=sa met' a)ndrei/as]: also pp. 630 C-E, 631 A, where he considers all these as [Greek: mo/ria a)retê=s], but [Greek: phro/nêsis] as the first of the four and [Greek: a)ndrei/a] as the last.

See also iii. pp. 688 B, 696 C-D, iv. p. 705 D.]

A just and temperate man will not be accounted virtuous, if (to use an Aristotelian simile) he be so extravagantly timid as to fear every insect that flits by, or the noise of a mouse.[496] All probability of beneficent results from his agency is effaced by this capital defect: and it is the probability of such results which constitute his title to be called virtuous.

[Footnote 496: Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. vii. 6, p. 1148, a. 8; Politic. vii. 1, p. 1323, a. 29. [Greek: ka)\n psophê/sê| mu=s . . . dediô\s ta\s parapetome/nas mui/as.]]

When we speak of the four as qualities or attributes of men (as Plato does in this treatise, while considering the proper type of character which the lawgiver should aim at forming) we speak of them in the abstract--that is, making abstraction of particular circumstances, and regarding only what is common to most men in most situations. But in the realities of life these particulars are always present: there is a series of individual agents and patients, acts and sufferings, each surrounded by its own distinct circumstances and situation. Now in each of these situations an agent is held responsible for the consequences of his acts, when they are such as he knows and foresees, or might by reasonable care know and foresee. An officer who (like Charles XII. at Bender) marches up without necessity at the head of a corporal's guard to attack a powerful hostile army of good soldiers, exhibits the maximum of courage: but his act, far from being commended as virtue, must be blamed as rashness, or pitied as folly. If a friend has deposited in my care a sword or other deadly weapon (to repeat the very case put by Sokrates[497]), justice requires me to give it back to him when he asks for it. Yet if, at the time when he asks, he be insane, and exhibits plain indications of being about to employ it for murderous purposes, my just restoration of it will not be commended as an act of virtue. When we look at these four qualities--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice--not in the abstract, but in reference to particular acts, agents, and situations--we find that before a just or courageous act can be considered to deserve the name of Virtue, there is always a tacit supposition, that no considerable hurt to innocent persons is likely or predictable from it in the particular case. The sentiment of approbation, implied in the name Virtue, will not go along with the act, if in the particular case it produce a certain amount of predictable mischief. This is another property common to all the four attributes of mind--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice:--and forming one of the conditions under which they become entitled to the denomination of Virtue.

[Footnote 497: Plato, Republic, i. p. 331 C; Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, 17; Cicero, De Officiis, iii. 25.]

[Side-note: Plato places these four virtues in the highest scale of Expetenda or Bona, on the ground that all the other Bona are sure to flow from them.]

In the first books of the Leges, Plato[498] puts forward Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, as the parts or sorts of Virtue: telling us that the natural rectitude of laws consists in promoting, not any one of the four separately, but all the four together in their due subordination. He classifies good things (Bona or Expetenda) in a triple scale of value.[499] First, and best of all, come the mental attributes--which he calls divine--Prudence or Intelligence, Temperance, Justice, and Courage: Second, or second best, come the attributes of body--health, strength, beauty, activity, manual dexterity: Third, or last, come the extraneous advantages, Wealth, Power, Family-Position, &c. It is the duty of the lawgiver to employ his utmost care to ensure to his citizens the first description of Bona (the mental attributes)--upon which (Plato says) the second and third description depend, so that if the first are ensured, the second and third will be certain to follow: while if the lawgiver, neglecting the first, aims at the second and third exclusively or principally, he will miss all three.[500] Here we see, that while Plato assigns the highest scale of value to the mental attributes, he justifies such preference by assuring us that they are the essential producing causes of the other sorts of Bona. His assurance is even given in terms more unqualified than the realities of life will bear out.

[Footnote 498: Plato, Legg. i. pp. 627 D, 631 A-C.]

[Footnote 499: Plato, Legg. i. p. 631 B-D, iii. p. 697 B. This tripartite classification of Bona differs altogether from the tripartite classification of Bona given at the commencement of the second book of the Republic. But it agrees with that, the "tria genera Bonorum," distinguished by Aristotle in the first Book of the Nikomachean Ethics (p. 1098, b. 12), among which [Greek: ta\ peri\ psuchê/n] were [Greek: kuriô/tata kai\ ma/lista a)gatha/]. This recognition of "tria genera Bonorum" is sometimes quoted as an opinion characteristic of the Peripatetics; but Aristotle himself declares it to be ancient and acknowledged, and we certainly have it here in Plato.]

[Footnote 500: Plato, Legg. i. p. 631 C. [Greek: ê)/rtêtai d' e)k tô=n thei/ôn tha/tera, kai\ e)a\n me\n de/chêtai/ tis ta\ mei/zona po/lis, kta=tai kai\ ta\ e)la/ttona; ei) de\ mê/, ste/retai a)mphoi=n.]

The same doctrine is declared by Sokrates in the Platonic Apology, pp. 29-30. [Greek: le/gôn, o(/ti ou)k e)k chrêma/tôn a)retê\ gi/gnetai, a)ll' e)x a)retê=s chrê/mata kai\ ta)/lla a)gatha\ toi=s a)nthrô/pois a(/panta kai\ i)di/a| kai\ dêmosi/a|] (30 B).]

[Side-note: In thus directing the attention of the Council to the common property of the four virtues, Plato enforces upon them the necessity of looking to the security and happiness of their community as the paramount end.]

When Plato therefore proclaims it as the great desideratum for his Supreme Council, that they shall understand the common relation of the four great mental attributes (Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice) to each other as well as to the comprehensive whole, Virtue--he fastens their attention on the only common property which the four can be found to possess: _i.e._ that they are mental attributes required in every one for the security and comfort of himself and of society. To ward off or mitigate the suffering, and to improve the comfort of society, is thus inculcated as the main and constant end for them to keep in view. It is their prescribed task, to preserve and carry forward that which he as lawgiver had announced as his purpose in the beginning of the Leges.

[Side-note: But he enjoins also other objectionable ends.]